Literary criticism

4 Carnets
Joseph Joubert and edited by David Kinloch and Philippe Mangeot
March 1, 1996

Depuis quelque temps la ‘pensée’ de Joubert est connue et étudiée, mais ce qu’on ignore est l’importance qu’il donne à l’acte même d’écrire et son scepticisme à l’égard du ‘livre’. Joubert ne destine pas ses écrits à la publication. Il s’attache dans son manuscript à designer la singularité absolue, ‘infracasable’, de chaque moment et de chaque fragment d’écriture. Mais ce qu’aucune edition n’a pu montrer jusqu’à present, c’est que Joubert était non moins fascine et troublé par l’acte même de l’écriture et la nature epistémologique du livre que par la nécessité d’élaborer une esthétique cohérente. Les éditeurs actuels ont préféré typographier ces carnets, tout en reproduisant, autant que possible, l’inscription du texte sur...

Stendhal et la Hollande
Edited by Elaine Williamson
January 1, 1996

Stendhal et la Hollande présente au lecteur quelque 200 documents inédits rédigés par Stendhal. Accompagnés de notes et commentaires autographes ils illustrent une étape essentielle de la genèse de son style. Elaine Williamson, qui a découvert ces documents, montre dans son introduction comment les techniques de composition utilisées par Stendhal dans son travail administrative préfigurent son œuvre de romancier. Ces documents datent du temps où Stendhal, auditeur au Conseil d’Etat, était chargé de l’administration des domaines et des bâtiments de la Couronne en Hollande, territoire réuni à la France en 1810 par Napoléon. Ils situent son œuvre dans l’univers du Premier Empire et s’appuient sur des notes identifiant ses sources...

Genesis: Some Episodes in Literary Creation
T.J. Reed
January 1, 1995
The Correspondence of Edward Gordon Craig and Count Harry Kessler
Edited by L. M. Newman
January 1, 1995

This long-awaited edition brings together for the first time 366 letters, cards and telegrams exchanged between Craig and his patron the cosmopolitan Count Kessler. An important primary source, illuminated by Dr Newman's commentary, it focuses on three areas of particular importance:- 1. Craig's artistic ideas and the spread of his influence through exhibitions and books; proposals are developed for work with Otto Brahm, Eleonora Duse, Max Reinhardt, Henry van de Velde, Eduard Verkade, Leopold Jessner, Dyaghilev, Beerbohm Tree, C. B. Cochran, and others. 2. Kessler's Cranach Press Hamlet with wood-engraved illustrations by Craig; this is a landmark in the history of twentieth-century book design and printing whose...

Jane Osborn
Léonie d’Aunet, edited by Wendy Mercer, and introduction by Wendy Mercer
January 1, 1994
Six years after achieving fame as the first woman ever to reach the unexplored Arctic islands of Spitzbergen, Léonie d'Aunet's distinction was transformed into notoriety when she was found in the act of adultery with Victor Hugo. In the 1840s, adultery was, for women at least, a criminal act, and Léonie d'Aunet was committed to prison and then to a period of confinement in a convent. Having lost children, friends, and financial support, she turned, on her release, to writing as a means of making a living. Perhaps reflecting her own experiences, the status of women in society is a theme central to all her work. Jane Osborn was first staged in Paris in 1855. Although it received favourable reviews in the press, it is clear that the critics...
L’Histoire d’Hypolite, Comte de Duglas
Madame d’Aulnoy, edited by Shirley Jones Day, and introduction by Shirley Jones Day
January 1, 1994
First published in 1690, and one of the most popular novels in the eighteenth century, L'Histoire d'Hypolite, Comte de Duglas, was subsequently expunged from the literary canon. L'Histoire d'Hypolite confronts us with the novel at the dawn of the eighteenth century, and with the problems of a woman writer. Madame d'Aulnoy shows her powers as a literary artist in her image of England as a land of violence and passion, in the creation of the heroine Julie, a subtle mixture of subversiveness and passive acceptance of a morally compromised social order, and, above all, in the character of Hypolite, the archetype of the passionate rebel who was at one with the natural world. The historical...
Che le Donne siano della Spezie degli Uomini
Arcangela Tarabotti, edited by Letizia Panizza, and introduction by Letizia Panizza
January 1, 1994
Forced to take religious vows in 1620, aged sixteen, Arcangela Tarabotti lived and died in the convent of Sant' Anna in Venice. Her works are mainly attacks on the social, political, and religious subordination of women. Her Tirannia paterna and L'Inferno monacale were not allowed publication in her lifetime. Without formal education, Tarabotti found some encouragement from members of the libertine Accademia degli Incogniti, especially its founder G.F. Loredan. He promoted the translation into Italian and publication of a notorious, though anonymous, Latin treatise which claimed Scriptural proof that women did not have a rational soul, and were not redeemed by Christ: like animals, they lacked moral responsibility. In the...
Les Amours
Étienne Jodelle, edited by Richard Griffiths, and introduction by Richard Griffiths
January 1, 1994
Jodelle's startling originality as a lyric poet has only been recognised recently. His reputation in this century has mainly depended on his play Cléopâtre, the first regular tragedy based upon the Classical model to be performed in French. But while his lyric poetry was much appreciated by contemporaries, he was dismissed by intervening generations of critics, who, searching for norms, mistook his originality and vigour for amateurishness and incapability. This edition of the Amours, which were first printed in 1574, after Jodelle's death, is the first modern edition to produce the complete collection in the order originally printed. Richard Griffiths shows that, within the sonnets, this order reflects a structure of well-...
Ödön von Horváth. Fifty Years On
Edited by Alan Bance and Ian Huish
January 1, 1989

The contents of this volume comprise the papers delivered at the second London Horváth symposium, held in 1988 under the auspices of the Institute of Germanic Studies and the Austrian Institute. At a time when Horváth studies were thriving, one of the objects of the symposium was to reflect their current stage of combining and diversifying. A number of the essays explore this topic, others reflect the turn towards his later work noticeable in the 1980s, but at the same time there is a perceptible turning back in the examination of new approaches to the 'Volksstück'. The topic of Horváth's relationship to his times continues to fascinate, and the volume examines the enigma of a man who, in Christopher...

Italian Futurism and the German Literary Avant-Garde
Peter Demetz
January 1, 1988

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